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The year of 2012 was a busy and prosperous for us at MultiReach; From growing business for Israeli tech-companies in China, via movie production to promote tourism, all the way to introducing Taiwan studies at Haifa University. Here, we are glad to share with you “A Year in Photos” that highlights some of our great moments of the year!

MultiReach 一直努力在加強台以之間的關係

Engaged in strengthening Taiwan- Israel ties, MultiReach has initiated a meeting between the Republic Of China(Taiwan) Representative in Israel- Liang-jen Chang and Haifa Mayor- Yona Yahav. Although assigned to Israel for more than three years and visited Haifa many times before, last Wednesday was Representative’s Chang first official meeting with Mayor Yahav held at Haifa City hall. The purpose of the meeting was introduction and exploring fields for cooperation.

Haifa is the third-largest city in Israel, home for three Nobel laureates (winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, prof. Dan Shechtman visited Taiwan last year) and also the nation’s innovation hub where world’s leading R&D centers are located (Microsoft, Intel, Yahoo, Google and soon also Apple). In the meeting both sides pointed out that Taiwan’s manufacturing is very strong, hence two sides can strengthen the integration and create more business opportunities while R&D is conducted in Haifa and manufacturing in Taiwan.

Representative Chang also personally invited Mayor Yahav and Chairman of Haifa Science Park to a field trip in Taiwan to further develop the cooperation between both sides.

An honorable guest from ROC (Taiwan) has visited MultiReach in Israel last month. He is the Chairman of a big Chinese bank and it was his first visit to Israel. Our purpose was to expose the chairman to Israeli innovation. It was the Jewish holiday season in Israel, therefore, traffic was an issue, so we used Waze (A social GPS application for mobile phones developed by the Israeli start-up) to find the fastest way around. While we were driving him around Israel, a discussion rose up in the car regarding the definition of Innovation. We’ve all agreed that it is not enough to have a bright idea; you should also know how to commercialize it so it would be considered as true Innovation.

While there are many Israeli companies with bright Inventions, the solution/company mentioned above differentiated itself as a good example of bright invention made in Israel alongside with commercialization in China.

Source: iTunes

Waze, the smart crowd-source traffic information application, which also takes part in Apple Maps project, has picked up $30 million in a Series C round of funding as it looks to capitalize on a burgeoning international opportunity, particularly in China.

The Israeli company’s latest funding been led by Horizon Ventures, which is managing the funds of Hong Kong’s Li Ka Shing, considered among the most powerful and richest men in Asia.

The company, leverages data from users who have downloaded the app to help construct a very accurate and real-time picture of traffic conditions. And it’s increasingly letting users report news events.

For Waze, Asia is huge challenge/opportunity and no country is bigger or perhaps more complicated than China, where consumers are snapping up cars but the infrastructure isn’t keeping pace. That’s why the investment by Li Ka Shing is the key to Waze’s big planned push into the middle kingdom.

It’s important to note that to this day Li Ka Shing invested in few Israeli start-ups: Magisto; Waze; Onavo; Everything.me; Wibbitz, Preen.me. Founders like Noam Bardin, CEO of Waze think that Li Ka Shing can be instrumental in helping establish the necessary partnerships that are required to enter a heavily regulated market likeChina. In interviews for local newspapers, he said the payoff could be huge because there isn’t a dominant mapping player in China and the market is ripe for the solution that Waze offers.

What do you think about the suggested formula: “Innovation= Invention + Commercialization” ? Are you familiar with other examples? Leave us a comment.

MultiReach core business is to facilitate the flow of Technology and Investments between Israel and China. Hence, we together with the City of Haifa Municipality were delighted to host number of delegations from China visiting Haifa- a city of Innovation, a week before Jewish New Year (Rosh Ha-Shana).

There were number of reasons for those delegations to come: explore opportunities for collaboration in high-tech; join 100th anniversary of Technion (Alma-mater for three Nobel Prize Laureates); and attending summit of Israeli Advanced Technology Industries (IATI) in Jerusalem.

Among Haifa’s distinguished guest were:

City of Shenzhen delegation of 22 members headed by Shenzhen Mayor Mr. Xu Qin. Shenzhen is the true capital of Chinese high-tech industry, headquartering companies like HUAWEI, is also the richest in China with highest per capita income among it’s 17 million population! Following the reception by Mr. Kahlon – Israeli Minister of Communications, Mr. Xu Qin, Mayor of Shenzhen and Mr. Yona Yahav- Mayor of Haifa signed the Sister-City Agreement between Shenzhen and Haifa. Mrs. Gao – Chinese Ambassador in Israel among with senior Embassy staff also attended the ceremony. Later on, a Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation was signed by Mr. Kulas, Chairman of Haifa Economic Corporation and the Mayor of Shenzhen.

Shanghai City, Shi Bei Science Park delegation headed by Chairman, Mr. Ding. On top of reasons mentioned above, the delegation came to learn from the experience of MATAM Science Park in Haifa and to explore the potential of close collaboration between those organizations.

Chengdu City Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries headed by Vice Chairman, Mr. Xu. Together with Haifa Municipality, the delegation was exploring opportunities for high-tech and cultural ties.

It was MultiReach great honor to assist Haifa Municipality in hosting high rank delegations of this scale. We are confident that our professional contribution will lead to to greater collaboration between two nations.

Michael Liagine of MultiReach draws an analogy between Chinese Swimmers’ performance on Olympic Games and Chinese Corporations in Global Arena:

August 2004 was the time when the Olympic Games took place in Greece. Back then, I was a young enthusiastic student in Beijing. I remember myself following qualification heats and finals on TV while practicing Chinese characters. On my free time, I was swimming in a big Communist era swimming pool close to Wang Fu Jin at the center of Beijing.

As a swimming enthusiast, it was easy for me to notice the most significant change in that discipline- the phenomenal success of Chinese swimmers in the Olympic pool of 2012. It is amazing especially due to the fact that swimming was NEVER a traditional Chinese discipline like gymnastics, badminton or ping-pong. China began to develop swimming as a discipline hardly 10 years ago… and look where it has gotten. Nowadays, China is outperforming known swimming nations like Australia, Holland & Russia with raising stars like Sun Yang and Ye Shiwen, a 16 years old female who swam last leg of 400m Individual Medley faster than American super-star Ryan Lochte.

Overall medal count shows even more impressive results with China winning more Gold medals then any other team in both traditional and new disciplines (from China’s point of view) like tennis, track & field and others. During the “Cold War”, Olympic Games and other sport’s events, were always an opportunity for “Super Powers” to show their might. Back then, US and USSR were competing each other on the overall medal count. Today, all eyes are on China.

Thus,China’s performance in Olympic Games is applicable to the Business World. You get to see same determination and devotion both in Individuals and corporations inChina. Traditional and new emerging industries are rapidly closing the gap with western corporations, while spending on R&D is constantly growing and so does global presence. Hence, Chinese corporations account for 70 of Forbes’ 500 companies. Many of them evolved as leading global players in different industries. One notable example is the Telecommunications industry, where Chinese corporations ZTE & Huawei evolved in the last decade are dominating over legendary Motorola, Nokia, and Erickson.

Hi Everyone, here are the much anticipated first two chapters of the Shalom micro-film. We shall update following chapters every Tuesday & Friday of coming weeks and then by the end of August you will enjoy the full version*** of it. So STAY TUNED!

A kind reminder, Shalom micro-film is a cooperation of Taiwan’s biggest travel agency-the Lion Travel and it’s media arm- XinMedia with Israel’s Ministry of Tourism to promote tourism from Taiwan to Israel. We, at MultiReach took part as coordinators and producers of the film.

So! here there are the first two chapters of the film, Hope you like it! Enjoy!

If you live on the Eastern part of the world, then you probably know Pah! An Israeli App that took Asia by storm. If you still don’t know Pah, try to look for it on YouTube and you’ll discover dozens of homemade videos of people screaming on their smartphones…Pah! It’s a voice controlled game in which Shouting = Shooting. By shouting ‘Pah!’ you can control a little blip-firing spaceship on the screen. ‘Paaaaahhhh’ moves the spaceship, and ‘Pah!’ fires the shooter.

Here’s a Demo by a viewer in Taiwan:

Think it’s the most ridiculous thing ever? Well, try to tell it to people in Taiwan,China and Singapore, where the game became viral in just few days. There wasn’t even a need to post an official video of the game online as there has been millions of views to videos people posted making fun of themselves. Apparently, piracy is a good thing cause with no marketing efforts what so ever, the game that was created within less than 48 hours became a wildfire in Asia after it was hacked (people managed to access the game without paying for downloading it).

But no need to worry, despite the fact that Israeli inventors didn’t make more than tens of thousand $ from the game, they still found a way to ride on the back of Pah’s success. They are now mentoring in conferences and seminars in Taiwan, China and Singapore sharing their experience of how to create a viral successful game within less than 48 hrs.

Are you familiar with other Israeli Apps that are success stories in Asia? Tell us!

Following our post “Shalom Journey” in which we told you about Micro-flm production MultiReach took part in, we are now delighted to share with you that according to our colleauges in Taiwan, editing work of the film is almost done. As said before, the purpose of “Shalom” Micro-film is to promote tourism from Taiwan to Israel hence, premiere is scheduled to be on July 20th in Taipei.
Meanwhile, the Lion Group (雄獅旅行社), the largest travel agency in Taiwan and its media company “XinMedia”, have aired the Website “Shalom Journey” introducing Trips & Attractions in Israel…Take a look.

If you’ve been viewing our Facebook profile and wondering about photos we’re recently uploaded, here’s the story behind them: About a month ago, The Lion Group (雄獅旅行社), the largest travel agency in Taiwan and its media company “XinMedia” have contact MultiReach seeking our assistance in producing a Micro-Film in Israel. MultiReach had accompanied TV crews filming in Israel before; however, this case was different. The Lion Group has recognized the growing market of Tourism fromTaiwan to Israel hence; they decided to film a micro-film that would highlight Israel’s beauty and tourist attractions. Needless to say, Lion Group initiative was supported by the Israeli Ministry of Tourism.

The “Shalom Journey” micro-film tells the story of a broken hearted girl coming fromTaiwanto travel inIsraelwhere she meets nice guy who introduces her magical spots of Israel. The filming work lasted 11 days during June and included 15 hard working and very professional staff. The movie is expected to be seen inTaiwanas of late July. We’ll keep you posted of course.

MultiReach would like to thank all parties who participate in “Shalom Journey” micro-film production: The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Israeli Ministry ofTourism,IsraelCultural & Economy Office inTaipei,Taiwan Israel Chamber of Commerce, Israel Airport Authority, Israel Police, Egged, Israel Post, Western Wall Council, Han HaShayarot, Kfar HaMaccabiah Hotel & Suites, Golan Wines, Ilana Goor Museum and others. Also big thanks to all our friends who took part and assisted us in production. Last but not least, thank you to all crew members: Thank you Xinwen, Director Kevin, Script writer Yuni, Producer Yuan Yuan, photographers Hacken and Kenny, Actress Olivia, Actor David and all the others. It was a great pleasure to work with all of you and we do hope that this was just a beginning of a very Fruitful & Enjoyable Journey. Shalom!